The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "James Williams" ...
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Good as gold: State pensions facing scrutiny
Public employees in Ohio have better wages and benefits than the taxpayers who support them. Taxpayer money funds the system which allows workers to retire a decade or more sooner than workers in the private sector. Also, more than one in four public school superindentents had received pension payments and salary simultaneously.
Tags: pension; private sector; public employee; pension funds; superintendents
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Desperate Appointment
Using undercover surveillance, KNXV reporters exposed Mexican dentists who crossed the border to perform illegal weekend procedures on illegal immigrants. The cash-only operation, which usually took place in the back of homes and in abandoned trailers, operated under the state dental board's radar. In some instances, patients risk serious infection at the hands of unlicensed dentists. As a result of the investigation, two of the dentist practices were shut down and KNXV was able to open up phone lines to "help people who needed dental care from licensed clinics."
Tags: dentists; immigration; Arizona State Dental Board; unlicensed dentists; undercover surveillance
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Investigation of a Cabinet Member
This investigation uncovered a "culture of corruption and questionable ethics" in the New Jersey Commerce and Economic Growth Commission. Specifically, Commerce Secretary William Watley and his Chief of Staff, Lesly Devereaux abused their positions and cost the taxpayers a lot of money. After these articles were published, Watley resigned and Devereaux was indicted on criminal charges.
Tags: FOIA; OPRA; fraud; St. James AME Church; attorney general; Division of Criminal Justice; lobbyists.
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Close Connections
The Asbury Park Press' investigations of municipal officials found that politically powerful attorneys had almost free reign to double bill and over bill the agencies they were supposed to serve. An investigation of the township attorney, who is the top elected Republican in the state, found that he double billed the city by more than $8,000. He initially said the double-billing was not his responsibility, but later admitted it was an accident. The Press found that the project in which the double-billing occurred was part of an unfinished seven-year effort to rewrite the city's ordinances. The senator charged more than $100,000 for the incomplete work, although similar projects cost a quarter as much and can take months, not years, to finish. Close examination of these billing records for the ordinance re-writing project showed his bills included rewrites of ordinances that don't exist, and repeated rewrites of ordinances that were little more than a paragraph or two long.
Tags: Marlboro Township-New Jersey; Council Members; Mayor Matthew V. Scannapieco; developers; Anthony Spalliero; Senator John O. Bennett III; political contributions; double-billing; town budget; ordinances; legal invoice; Monmouth County; campaign contributions; Center for Responsive Politics Marlboro Cultural and Improvement Fund; Keansburg Board of Education; New Jersey State Commission of Investigation; reform bill; elected officials
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Selling Out: A Textbook Example
Relegating academic ethics to the backburner, professors are receiving kickbacks from publishers in return for requiring students to purchase the latter's textbooks. Running on a tip from an executive at a textbook company, the article investigates the world of under-the-table payoffs in textbook sales in higher education. The story also cites concrete examples of cases, for example, when a certain publishing company paid professors a hefty $4,000 in turn for requiring his/her students to buy those books.
Tags: James Williams; Middle Tennessee State University; Amy Staples; North West Publishing; Francine M. Butler; Gerhard Gyrtz; Anna Bates; Aquina College; W.W.Norton; Daniel Bartell; Henry Rosovsky; Winthrop Jordan; Steve Tressler; Pearson Longmann
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Gunrunners
This Web site was done jointly with a PBS Frontline/Word episode, "Gunrunners," which examined the "secret activities of international gun smugglers and the efforts of United Nations investigators to track and stop this trafficking," according to the contest questionnaire.
Tags: weapons; trade; crime; military intelligence; CIA; U.S. Customs; Department of Defense; arms; Somalia; Interpol; irewar03
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Nice Work, If You Can Get It
The National Journal looks at "the tradition of tapping well-heeled donors for diplomatic posts." The story focuses on the case of William Farish, the newly appointed U.S. ambassador to Britain, who "is one of more than two dozen people now on track to lead the good life ... to some desirable place because they bet big bucks on the Election 2000 winner." The report reveals that "Bush's first 35 political appointees to the diplomatic corps gave an average of $141,110 to him and other Republican campaigns and committees during 1999-2000." The author cites a number of critics who question "whether the spoil systems ... befits the United States at the cusp of the 21st century," and points to examples of untested diplomats' gaffes.
Tags: diplomacy; embassies; ambassadors; international politics; fundraising; Center for Responsible Politics; foreign policy; PACs; campaign contributors; Department of State
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Profiling of Prevention: Taking the measure of Quality of Life policing
This Milwaukee Journal Sentinel series "uncovered serious questions of fairness and effectiveness dogging the Milwaukee Police Department's controversial "zero-tolerance" strategy." The investigation found that "police issued a half-million municipal tickets and collected $ 10 million in new fines, but with disappointing results overall." A major part of the series focused on the racial gap. Through a computer analysis of the municipal court database the reporters found that "minorities in poor central city neighborhoods received 70% of the tickets." The series revealed that "even offenses such as speeding and jaywalking were enforced mainly against minorities" and that "people living in homeless shelters received thousands of tickets while on the street." The investigation also found that "as many as "800 people were wrongly fined, subject to driver's license suspension or even jailed in cases of mistaken identity in just one year."
Tags: race; minorities; poor; homeless; crime; courts; speeding; jaywalking; database mapping project
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Prison Drug Death
The Tribune-Star investigated the cocaine-related death of Wabash Valley Correctional Facility maximum security inmate Mark James Williams-Ferrell. The investigation reveals that Williams-Ferrell's last visitor may have been responsible. A month after the first package of stories ran, a judge issued a murder warrant for the inmate's last visitor, and a few days later the visitor turned himself in. (August 18, September 20, 27 & 28, 1996)
Tags: Hudson Taylor Prison drug death Contest entry Drugs 41 pgs.
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No title (id: 5836)
Boston Globe looks at the lives and activities of the Bulger brothers; finds William Bulger, the state senate president, may have some questionable outside activities, while his brother James, an underworld gang leader, has a suspicious relationship with the FBI, September - December 1988.